In many businesses there are workflows in which subject matter experts (SMEs) are consulted as an essential part of a given process. For example, many businesses have call centers that receive calls from clients or customers who present a transaction or a problem that is not always resolvable in the incoming call. Other businesses have email or online points of entry for taking in such transactions or problems.
Often these transactions and problems are recorded in a ticket, which initiates a workflow process leading to completion or resolution. The initiated process may be handled wholly or partly by a person who will need to consult with one or more subject matter experts.
In other cases, the process can be handled largely by a business application (or software-based system) that will at some point call on a subject matter expert to review a portion of a file, and/or respond to a request and provide necessary input. In such cases, the expert will receive a communication from the system, requesting some action in a workflow. When a workflow cannot progress without the expert's input, and particularly when it is time sensitive, it is important that the expert receiving a communication request is available to provide input.
In many cases, the subject matter expert response is needed within a very short time frame. This means that the expert must be available to address the request, or the organization's response will be too slow. Unlike a person assigned a call center, whose job is to take the next call, subject matter experts may have other tasks, some with higher priority than a particular expert response function that may be part of workflow. Thus, the response depends on the availability of the expert, at the time the communication request is issued.